In 2008, Shlomi Eldar, a prominent Israeli television journalist, was asked to do a segment on a baby Palestinian boy suffering from a lethal blood disease, and an Israeli doctor’s attempt to save him. But Eldar was reluctant.

It takes a filmmaker with a significant amount of chutzpah to base his second feature film on an old chestnut like a family gathering as its patriarch nears death. Marc Meyers not only takes that risk in his second feature film, “Harvest,” which opens on May 6; he also eschews the emotional pyrotechnics that the subject usually encourages to create something more thoughtful, intelligent and, frequently, elegant.

Under ideal circumstances, marriage is hard work. Under extreme pressure, it sometimes seems impossible. Jasmin Avissar and Osama “Assi” Zatar, the young couple at the heart of Gabriella Bier’s documentary “Love During Wartime,” are under extreme pressure. She is an Israeli and he is a Palestinian. As the film, which is playing in the Tribeca Film Festival, makes abundantly clear, the pressure comes from all sides, including some unexpected ones.